How Did The Passing of 2018 PA 10 Affect Growers, Processors, and Safety Compliance Facilities

2018 PA 10 is a set of rules that clarifies and updates the existing regulations concerning Michigan marijuana transportation for growers, processors, and safety compliance facilities. The purpose of the law is to provide more details about situations in which a secure transporter may not be required. The thrust of the new rules is to help to streamline operations of all stakeholders in the industry and, ultimately, cut overall costs.

How Did 2018 PA 10 Affect Growers?

In most situations, growers must transport cannabis plants using a secure transporter – an officially-recognized company with legal clearance to take medical marijuana plants from a grower to someone else. However, 2018 PA 10 creates a set of new situations in which a grower does not have to use a licensed transporter to move cannabis plants around. The new rules are mostly a clarification of practices that many growers already engaged.

First, 2018 PA 10 permits growers to send tissue cultures, seeds, and seedlings to another grower without using a secure transporter.

Second, the new set of rules allows growers to send their products to a processor or provisioning center without a secure transporter if either of those two entities occupies the same site as the grower. Thus, if a company operates a growing facility next to a processing plant accessible via private road, then the grower does not need to arrange secure transportation. The grower must still use a secure transporter if they send their goods via a public road.

Finally, a grower may send their products to either a processor or a provisioning center if the grower uploads details of the transfer to the statewide monitoring system.

How Did 2018 PA 10 Affect Processors?

Just as with growers, processors usually have to use a secure transporter to take products to market. However, with the introduction of 2018 PA 10, there are now exceptions according to LARA.

The new rules allow a processor to transfer products without a secure transporter only if the processors enters information relating to each transfer into the statewide monitoring system and if it occupies the same site as the provisioning center. Processors must, therefore, still use a secure transporter if they have to use a public road to take their goods to market.

How Did 2018 PA 10 Affect Safety Compliance Facilities?

2018 PA 10 also makes it clear what powers are available to safety compliance facilities under the law. The rules say that safety compliance facilities are allowed to take samples of marijuana or marijuana-derived products without the use of a secure transporter to their testing facilities. It also says that testing facilities can only deliver marijuana to a testing facility and nowhere else.

2018 PA 10 makes it clear that safety compliance facilities are allowed to collect samples from growers, processors and provisioning centers at random.

In short, the 2018 PA 10 did not affect growers, processors, and safety compliance facilities a great deal. However, it did clarify the rules for transporting seeds and seedlings and made it clear that a secure transporter is not required if not using public roads.